Gjilan
__NOEDITSECTION__ __TOC__ Synopsis At a later date. Background The Raid Soft pink light, the light of dawn, broke through the window along with the invaders. They had not come this way in decades, so the alarm bell went unrung until it was too late. The sentries that once guarded the village's coast had given it up for sleep years ago. The threat had receded. Invaders from the sea no longer came this far south. But they did. They came, in their carracks and coracles, to the undefended village. To her village. She saw them and tried to run. She tried, but the young child she scooped from the bed was heavy and angry at being disturbed so suddenly. He wailed. She kept running until they put the dagger in her calf. She tried to crawl then. They stopped her. They tore the child from her arms. No longer would he cry; she heard his neck snap as he hit the hard sand several feet away. Some of them started on her, then. She could not understand their grunts, their speech. If it could be called speech. They laughed as they stripped her; blood ran from her leg, from her nose, from everywhere. They held her down, taking turns. She was pinned to the sand. She closed her eyes and wished for death. Perhaps it came. A day, perhaps two, later, she awoke. Her body had partially healed itself. It ached though, but the ache was nothing to match the ache in her heart. Her son's body was burned. A falling timber from the nearby shrine had ensured he would never be one of the undead. She stood, shaking, and surveyed what had been her home. Only the smoke and charcoal remained. She dutifully searched for the living, picking through the debris and bodies, but found none. She did not know why she yet lived. She turned away, then, and walked. How far she walked in that time of loss, she never knew. She just walked. She ate and drank, for those needs drove her still, but she put herself in harm's way again and again. Yet she was untouched. She healed. She did not know how the bones knit themselves or her scalp regrew. She did not know why she lived and all others died. In time, as all things happen, the extreme mellowed into a more sullen, soft ache in her heart. She learned of her gift as a healer, and cursed it. Rarely did she use the healing. Rather, she used the gift to harm the beasts who hindered her. She stayed away, for the most part, from people. She grew powerful. And she questioned, every day, why she lived. The core of her, the hate of her, would never disappear. She would never forgive the blue ones. The krolvin. Never forget what they did to her. Never forget what they did to her family. And so, she continued on. Recent Events A dozen years passed. It came that as she was doing a task for the local adventurer's guild, her luck did not hold. She died. Little did she know this death was but a test. She died, and expected to be reunited with her village in the great desmesne of Goseana. Before her soul sundered from her body, someone came for her. He was brusque and assuming. She longed to be reunited with her family, but he did not know this. And he was blue. She refused his help. She refused it again. He stood over her and vowed to watch her body decay into dust. She closed her eyes and asked Goseana to accept her in. Goseana would not let her through the gates. Once again, she had lost everything. But it was nothing to her anyway. It was only things. She started walking. Category:Platinum Profiles